D Day!!!

Diet Day.  But maybe it should be HL Day. Healthy Lifestyle Day. Changing bad habits to good habits. To do a “diet” is just a temporary fix.  But a diet is only the beginning to learning what your body needs are and, in turn, to living life to its fullest potential.  We have to decide between the following:  do we want to eat to live? or live to eat?  I have mentioned before that I really love to cook and to create things in the kitchen.  I can still do this while incorporating some healthier choices.  I will still cook with the “finer” ingredients (i.e.  Irish butter and whole cream) but the key to anything is moderation.  Not my husband’s motto: “some is good, more is better, and too much is just perfect”.  Hence, the extra 50 pounds he now needs to work off.

So Walt and I weighed in this morning. You can see our numbers posted under the “loss log” tab.  I am creating a better format for the log, so bare with me while I get my blog fully functional. 

Today we started the “switch to slim” plan, which you can read under the “health tab” for details.  Any diet comes down to simple math. Calories in and calories out.  Typically (for women) to maintain your weight, multiply your weight by 11; If you are a man multiply by 12.  This is the amount of calories needed just to maintain your current weight.  Any calories you burn through exercise would need to be added back into food intake.  For example, I need 1842 calories to maintain my weight, if I walk for an hour and burn 350 calories, I would need to increase my calories to 2192 to maintain my current weight.  But I want to lose weight!  Each pound of fat is 3600 calories.  So in order for me to lose 2 pounds a week, I need to deficit 7200 calories (or work out enough to lose those calories).  Basically, this means that without any form of exercise I need to only intake 800 calories a day. Walt on the other hand (being a guy and being much taller than me) will get to eat 1400 calories a day!  The inequities of life! Seriously, though, for any healthy lifestyle, you need exercise. Even a half hour of walking a day is a good start.  Again, I insist, if you are looking to  change your lifestyle and doing a jumpstart diet, please, please, please check with your physician first.

As always, Breathe Chic